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we transitioned from capitalism to technofeudalism in 2008 and serfdom has only accelerated since
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this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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The thing is, the need for large expansive homes have substantially evaporated in younger generations as technology advances.
The desire for a massive home as a well off (not wealthy, but above peasant) person was due to:
Needing somewhere to store all your necessary shit, your tools of your trade, etc etc.
Needing somewhere for your servant(s) to live, because they took care of the house for you
Somewhere to store all your books and other pleasantries
However, our servants are now tiny little robots that dont need to eat or sleep, they dont need an entire bedroom and seat at the table.
The entire knowledge of all of humanity no longer requires a library of alexandria, but instead can fit in your pocket.
Many folks have all the tools of their trade able to fit in a small laptop bag at most.
When you can largely fit all your requirements of modern life in a single cardboard box, as opposed to needing several rooms, the desire for a mansion dwindles. Entire kitchens have been replaced with a single microwave and a hotplate.
Meals that used to take an entire day and a whole kitchen staff to prepare, now take a single person hitting an on button.
We have VR, laptops, netflix, the entire internet, etc etc all at our fingertips.
And most importantly, we have cars and whatnot. A trip to the store is no longer a "wake up at 6 in the morning to get the horses saddled and hitched, then three hour ride into town, get back home just before sunset" affair.
It's now "hop in the car and drive over to the store in 10 minutes"
And unlike horses, a car doesnt need a whole ass stable and stablehand. It can just... sit there lol
So yeah, its perfectly reasonable for us to slowly revert back to small life, everything we could possibly need to live life can fit in an extremely small square footage now, theres literally no need to have a giant mansion, it's largely pointless.
In most towns and cities, grocery store should be within walkable distance to allow people to get what they need for the next day or two, removing the necessity for large pantries or food storage rooms. Also getting benefits of eating healthier and fresher.
Is this astroturfing?
Of course I want more space! small rooms with a small number of rooms is claustrophobic and cluttered. I need space for me and all my shit!
Just do make sure that, if you live in a small home, you spend some time out in the town, because living in too little space can harm your feels.
I wish houses weren't required by law to have a lawn. I could save so much space if I didn't have one and all the junk to take care of it.
This thread blows my mind.
You'd prefer to just be boxed in with people all around you and concrete everywhere? That's what developers would do if they weren't required by law to give you space. Pack them into smaller spaces and get more money!
You could look into lawn alternatives. Here the rules are no weeds and vegetation can't be over 6 inches unless it is intentionally cultivated. So I have native plants in garden beds around my house that take up roughly 50% of the yard, and the "lawn" portion is mostly native groundcovers that are unlikely to reach above 6 inches. I rarely have to do anything to it since it's mostly native. We go out there maybe once a month to mow the little grass that's left (which we're phasing out as natives spread) and pull weeds.
It was a little more work up front to make beds and plant natives, but we did it the lazy way, starting out small and expanding over the years as natives grew and spread. We did temporary borders of cardboard with rocks on top to smother grass and expand out as needed.